#MeToo: US based journalist alleges she was raped by MJ Akbar

Akbar recently resigned as the Union Minister after a series of sexual harassment charges were levelled against him by female journalists.

According to Gogoi's first-hand account published in The Washington Post, she was first sexually assaulted by Akbar in 1994.

"It must have been late spring or summer of 1994, and I had gone into his office — his door was often closed. I went to show him the op-ed page I had created with what I thought were clever headlines. He applauded my effort and suddenly lunged to kiss me. I reeled. I emerged from the office, red-faced, confused, ashamed, destroyed," she wrote.

She recalled that the second incident was a few months later, when I was summoned to Bombay to help launch a magazine.

"He called me to his room at the fancy Taj hotel, again to see the layouts. When he again came close to me to kiss me, I fought him and pushed him away. He scratched my face as I ran away, tears streaming down. That evening, I explained the scratches to a friend by telling her I had slipped and fallen at the hotel."

In another incident she wrote: "In his hotel room, even though I fought him, he was physically more powerful. He ripped off my clothes and raped me. Instead of reporting him to the police, I was filled with shame. I didn’t tell anyone about this then. Would anyone have believed me? I blamed myself. Why did I go to the hotel room?"

"What was worse was that after that first time, his grip over me got tighter. I stopped fighting his advances because I felt so helpless. He continued to coerce me. For a few months, he continued to defile me sexually, verbally, emotionally. He would burst into loud rages in the newsroom if he saw me talking to male colleagues my own age. It was frightening," she wrote.

Reacting to the allegations, Akbar said his relationship with Pallavi Gogoi was consensual. “This relationship  gave rise to talk  and would later cause significant strife in my home life as well,” the statement reads.

“This consensual relationship ended, perhaps not on the best note.” He said he’s been the subject of “a barrage of false and fabricated accusations, which I am now addressing.”

As the #MeToo campaign gained momentum in India, several women journalists had levelled charges of sexual harassment against Akbar, a former journalist.

A journalist named Priya Ramani was first among them to raise her voice directly against the Union Minister.

On Oct 8, Ramani tweeted: I began this piece with my MJ Akbar story. Never named him because he didn’t “do” anything. Lots of women have worse stories about this predator—maybe they’ll share. #ulti https://www.vogue.in/content/harvey-weinsteins-open-letter-sexual-harassment/amp/#click=https://t.co/A2uHiJt9zd …"

Akbar had also filed a defamation case against journalist Priya Ramani.

Another former colleague Ghazala Wahab had also brought serious allegations of sexual harassment against Akbar.